


A Council of Kings

by witchkings



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: BotFA, Double Penetration, Erebor, M/M, Mild Angst, Multi, Smut, Three POVS, Threesome, arcenstone, diplomatic meetings of a special (spicy) kind, established!barduil, king!bard, musings on pride, thorin is greedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 12:00:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28635135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/witchkings/pseuds/witchkings
Summary: Thranduil and Bard come to the gates of Erebor with the mission of retrieving what they hold to be rightfully theirs. Bard thinks the Arcenstone will be enough of a bartering chip to make Thorin yield, but Thranduil knows better. He knows the dark desires that linger in the depths of the dwarf's heart and he means to make use of them.
Relationships: Bard the Bowman/Thorin Oakenshield/Thranduil, Bard the Bowman/Thranduil
Kudos: 18





	A Council of Kings

**Author's Note:**

> This was a lot of fun to write and taught me there is a definitive limit to how long I can write notes on my phone. Set during botfa and somewhat merges in with the movie's events. Hope you enjoy!:)
> 
> warning: explicit smut!

Part I: The Age-Old King  
  
Thranduil took pride in many a triviality about his kingdom, usurped every conversational opportunity to boast with his own capabilities, heeding not those who would label him lackluster or even incompetent, those who would call the way of life his people adhered to savagery. If asked to recount a history of his own life, Thranduil would come up with a finely curated list of triumphs ranging from his first ever decapitation of one of Morgoth's servants at the age of twenty and two, to the year Thingol had bestowed upon him the office of a commander of his legions, all the way to his own coronation which had resulted not from a headstrong lack of sense on his father's part, but from Thranduil's own aptitude in battle, from his perserverance and fervor with which he had personally driven back the forces of evil.  
  
Most of all, however, Thranduil pictured himself an eloquent and credible diplomat swathed in the vesture of an estranged and eccentric king. His exclusion from the White Council was a mere technicality based on that very image others had of him and Oakenshield's refusal to parley in a sensible manner resulted only from Dwarfen stubbornness. Thranduil would not make the same mistake twice, no. Their conversation in his throne room had revealed much to him about Thorin's nature and not all of it was foul and corrupted, but Thranduil paid no heed for that which he could not deploy for his own uses.  
  
Thranduil basked in his pride, at that moment fuelled by the weather-beaten creature that rode beside him who had so readily accepted Thranduil into his broken realm and battered heart. He let its luminescence fill out all his negative spaces so that he sat aglow atop his great elk, the combined strength of every hand-picked soldier under his command at his back, a striking image. If ever a creature outside of this secluded area of the map happened upon the scene, they would not dare call him  
peculiar. They would call him enthralling.  
  
As it was, only one pair of eyes flitted between the army's objective and Thranduil's self-assured smile in a tottering waltz, those of his companion who smelled faintly of decay even though a third of his life at least was yet before him. Every other attendee was fixated upon Erebor which loomed ever closer overhead. Its entrance was barred by shattered fixtures and its gravelly skin sheathed in first winter's weeping. An impenetrable kingdom, every Dwarf on Middle-Earth would claim, and that thought tugged Thranduil's lips upward. It seemed the sons of Aulë were doomed to keep making this detrimental assumption.  
  
At last, Thranduil halted, and raised his fist in a silent command to his subjects. Armor sang quietly in the warmth-deprived air as the Woodland Realm's force arranged itself into symmetrical blocks at the foot of the Lonely Mountain. Once more, Bard's anxious gaze latched onto Thranduil's face and this time, the Elf gently inclined his head, meeting it.  
  
"What distresses you, dragonslayer?"  
  
"So much hinges on Thorin's compliance," Bard said. His knuckles were white where he gripped the bridle, but aside from that and the watery sheen over his eyes, nothing about his person betrayed his nerves. He was as regal and ready a king as his forebearers had been with his flawless posture and brocaded cuffs. "How can it be just that one creature may decide to crush my people's future with a mere gesture? How can we be certain he won't? If Bilbo's report rings true, not even the Arcenstone might suffice to bring forth what he promised us."  
  
Thranduil's smile widened as several sentiments flitted to the forefront of his mind.  
  
That is precisely why I imprisoned the dwarfs rather than smuggling them ever closer to their destination.  
  
And:  
  
Oakenshield will never be satisfied with any amount of gems or gold, such is the essence of dragon sickness.  
  
And:  
  
You are a rare breed of flower, Heir of Girion, thorny where none would suspect, sturdy but not to the detriment of your beauty. Alas, wilt you must eventually and wilt you will.  
  
But he uttered none of them as his personal mission hinged on Bard's compliance also.  
  
"Rarely will you find justice in the spiderweb of politics, and if that is the standard you seek, you should retire your crown this very instant. Aim only for that which benefits your people and they will call you a good king, perhaps even a great one. But do not fret for I have another scheme in mind, should the jewel fail to bring about a treaty that ensures the survival of all those that deserve it."  
  
Bard's brow contorted and there were more questions pleading to be asked, but none of it. Thranduil stifled them with a disarming hand on Bard's shoulder and they both diverted their focus to the barricade before them. It did not take long for the traitors to show their ruddy faces and Oakenshield stood out only by the crude headpiece that distorted the snow's pure white into scattered rays of soot and ash.  
  
"Is this how you would treat with me? With your whole military at your back while my people are yet miles away," he called out and his voice dispersed in the harsh pre-winter wind that wittled away at all minds present who were not for eternity, subtracting years with the prophecy of a season that would prove a monstrous and ravenous beast to combat. Here was not a king, not even a regal dwarf. Here was a madman and as such Thranduil resolved to treat him.  
  
"As you so readily outline at every occasion presented to you, I would hardly be able to penetrate Erebor with brute force alone," he replied. "Consider my people's presence an insurance. Witnesses, if you will."  
  
"For what?" Thorin spat. "Do you think me so foolish as to murder you on the spot?" Thranduil did not, but that was of no relevance at present. "Come to think of it, I just might." Thorin produced a crossbow with a bolt so thick it seemed rather designed to put a bull out of a sickness-induced misery than to deal with foreign diplomats. The raw stupidity of dwarfs never ceased to amaze Thranduil and another self-satisfied smirk stole onto his features as behind him, several dozen bows were drawn with sharp hisses.  
  
"I suspect you would cry for your Maker's mercy ere you could pull that trigger. Or for your mother."  
  
Growls like the mimikry of an impotent thunderstorm tumbled down at them, several of the company's faces blotchy with outrage, but even among them some glanced anxiously at their king. A crack in the facade of fellowship never boded well, least of all for its leader. Thranduil's mirth deepened and he lapped it up. He would yearn for it ere the day was spent with the proposal he had in mind.  
  
"At least my mother still walks this earth and is not faded even from memory as yours must be. Tell me again of the virtues of immortality, Elf," Thorin said. Thranduil had long since overcome the burden of grief. At a high cost, the highest perhaps, but his indifference ensured the survival of his people and for that, he would pay any price. Safe for the one that lingered only feet away, behind that meak line of defense. He said naught, but gestured for Bard to present their ace.  
  
"I have not come here to listen to banter nor to stand the way in which you look down upon us," Bard said and his voice was firm though there was neither hatred nor provocation in it. He was raw, too raw, something that would be veiled by a facade of professionalism once he bore a real symbol of his reign and not just a nominal one. "I have come as a representative to lay claim to what was promised to my people."  
  
"I suppose you fancy yourself a ruler," Thorin jeered and at a vicious glance from him, his companions cackled and hooted. "As one you will realize that the fate of a kingdom can change as arbitrarily as the winds. I have nothing to give you, and nothing to owe."  
  
"You swore an oath, Thorin Oakenshield. Would you have it known that your word is worthless?"  
  
Oh dear, Thranduil thought. Here was a precarious intersection of the orbits of two kings, one who discarded birthright as though it were a dirty rag, and one who clung to it because it was the only true possession he had. Thranduil meant to make sure they collided so that he was the one to pick out of the wreckage what benefitted him most.  
  
"And you, Bard the Bargeman, would you have it known that your generosity is naught more than poorly veiled opportunism?" Thorin retorted, and Thranduil schooled his expression into open-mouthed offense, but inside his chest, delight curled like a flame in the night.  
  
"You made a promise."  
  
"What choice did I have, but to barter away what my ancestors labored all their lives for?"  
  
"My people will not see the other side of this winter. The amount of gold we require is but a fraction of your wealth. You would not notice its absence. Already, we shiver and starve. Will you do nothing?"  
  
"I though that is why you lay with the Elf," Thorin spat and hot blood crept into Bard's cheeks. It was fury of the kind only Thorin Oakenshield could inspire with his pig-headed way of twisting every situation to make himself seem both the victim and the superior.  
  
"Perhaps this will convince you," Bard said through gritted teeth. It seemed even the saintliest of men could run out of patience. He drew forth the gemstone which sucked the saturation from the surrounding world to all who beheld it. Crystalline with a heart of blue lightning and an orange phosphorescence, its beauty's search for rivals was fruitless. If only it looked beyond its time and into history where it's radiance would not be met, but outmatched and overpowered. Alas, short was the memory of the world, constituted of creatures such as the ones Thranduil was to congregate with.  
  
Oakenshield did not react in the manner Bard had hoped for, but in the one Thranduil had deduced from the terrible gleam in his lust-darkened eyes back when they had argued at the base of Thranduil's throne.  
  
"A pitiful fake."  
  
Thranduil knew he had seconds to intervene or Bilbo would step forth and declare the authenticity of the gem and confess the means by which Bard had acquired it.  
  
"Very well," he said, raising his arm, and the Hobbit slunk back into the shadows. "Let me offer you a more compelling price then, one that will cover the gold for the people of Dale as well as the Lasgalen gems."  
  
Thorin focused him with a sharp gaze then and for a brief instant, the crazed haze seemed to lift and make of him a dwarf in his prime, proud and stout, deserving of his blasted metal headpiece and the privileges it granted him. It was a glimpse of a future that might have been, but it made Thranduil's next words all the more easier to say.  
  
"I have seen into your heart and thus know what you want even more than the King's Jewel. You want to exact your revenge upon me and I am willing to accept it with the Dragonslayer as our witness. What say you, Son of Thrain?"  
  
Thorin's reply was instantaneous.  
  
"I say why do you not join me, my lords. Our ale may not be to your usual taste, but I daresay you may not like it any less for that fact." At Thorin's command, a wood-and-rope ladder was let down the barricade. Bard's protests and inquiries all stayed within the barrier of his mind.  
  
"Listen to me, Bard, and listen well," Thranduil whispered urgently once they had both dismounted and were strutting towards Thorin's lair. "What I am about to propose to Oakenshield will seem neither just nor reasonable to you, in fact it may even ring of lunacy, but it will guarantee that we both receive what we are owed."  
  
"I trust you," Bard said. He meant it to be a neat sentiment perhaps, or a declaration of devotion. His intention mattered not, but it gave Thranduil a faint notion of guilt. Not so much as to sway him, of course. Bard had had ample chance to turn around, but as it was, his way was cast in Thranduil's shadow and led directly into the dragon's den.

Part II: The Spell-Bound King  
  
Thorin took pride in very few domains that could be related directly and exclusively to his own person. His build, perhaps, tall for a dwarf and regal, or his swordsmanship, matched to any great warrior of the South, but those were minor pillars to uphold his palace of surety and self-righteousness. When given the space to brag, Thorin would bring up the following:  
  
The endless expanse of gold his grandfather had amassed from which he would not part, not with a single coin.  
  
His family tree whose roots ran so prominent and deep it was beyond the comprehension of this fleeting age, and made him a direct son of Durin.  
  
The kingdom he had been born to inherit with its stone-hewn splendour and best of subjects.  
  
They were all valid reasons to be proud, but none of his own making, a fact that prickled uncomfortably under his skin as he led Thranduil and Bard deep into that very kingdom. Not because he was ashamed of his own lack of accomplishment thus far, but because it was something Thranduil was bound to bring up and twist to gain the moral, if not the political highground. Here was a game the elf had been playing for hundreds of years. Thorin had other means of keeping up, twinkling in a chest guarded by the one person he could still lay his trust in.  
  
"Where are you leading us?" Bard demanded. He was the only one of the three who was unarmoured, whose every step did not cause a crescendo of metallic echoes as they strode down the narrow walkway that ended at the throne which was dulled for the lack of the Arcenstone, cast in shadow. Thorin slanted leftward onto a branch of that walkway which cantered towards one of his council chambers. The door was narrow enough that Bard and Thranduil had to stoop to enter, but the room beyond - ash-covered surfaces, cob-webbed corners, overturned furniture - had an arching ceiling and was lit by a cutout in the wall that connected it to the main hall.  
  
Thorin built himself up by the table which was dust-free, buried under various blueprints of Erebor and strategic battle maps of the surrounding landscape. Bard and Thranduil stilled midway between door and Thorin, gravitating close to one another. Thorin sniffed and he could not differentiate the clear as spring water scent of the elf from the musky sweat of the man, though whether it was their physical proximity that caused this or a hidden facette of their relationship as he had jested at, Thorin knew not. It was welcome fodder for his fury.  
  
"We were promised ale," Thranduil commented, tone dry. "I would have it in crystal."  
  
"I was promised vengeance," Thorin hissed in reply, spittle flying. He unsheathed his sword and instantly, Bard mirrored him. A plaything with enough teeth to double as a bodyguard. How sweet. "I would have it in blood."  
  
"Oh, I don't think so." Thranduil smirked. He held Thorin's gaze as he reached for Bard's wrist and gently urged him to yield the floor. Thorin remained in his stance, it gave him security, a feeling of control which was rapidly slipping through his fingers much like the gold below their feet which he could never seem to encompass in his arms.  
  
Here was the pivot point in this narrative, clear as a mithril mirror: Thorin was bound by his ancestry to thirst for gold, but this once, it was silver he wanted for. To grab a hold of its curling vines that made of Thranduil a monarch, to demean him from holy and untouchable to something common. To bury his thick fingers in the silken strands of it that ran down the Elvenking's chest, to tear at it until its proprietor was reduced to agonized whimpers, to spoil it. To claw at its manifestation in moon-kissed skin until it stained violet and purple and black and red, to bite it raw and ugly so none other might look upon it with an idea to make it theirs.  
  
Thranduil, though inclinced towards vanity and, at times, melancholy, still possessed enough of a hawkish sense to have realized this. It was clear from the way he puffed out his chest, glancing down his nose at Thorin. The bargeman was unaware as of yet, but his being here had to have some meaning, hidden in Thranduil's piercing intent.  
  
"I know you would have it in another shape, something more... vulgar."  
  
"And what is this nameless object you speak of?" Thorin said, his lid twitching. "What is it your offering for your rocks and his peasants from which he can barely distinguish himself?"  
  
"I shall accept that as the greatest compliment any king has ever been offered," Bard said defiantly, but his neck had flushed a light pink.  
  
"As you should," Thranduil laughed, then vanquished his mirth. Gravity slammed over his features as though he had put on a helmet to protect his head in the imminent carnage. "Let me speak plainly then as it seems clear that allusions cannot penetrate your thick skull. Long have you held a grudge against me, one that would have dissolved had you ever ventured to assume my perspective might I add, and long have I known about your special... fixation on me. When you spat accusations at me I realized just how eccentric it had become."  
  
"What do you speak of?" Bard said. Thranduil ignored him and Thorin thought he might be listening to his heartbeat. As a ram pounding over a battle field in a fitful rage.  
  
"I will allow it. I will take your demeaning and your curses, I will take your bites and scratches, and yes, I will take your puny dwarfen cock up my ass. This is what I offer."  
  
A gasp broke the heavy silence and both glanced at Bard who had his hand clamped over his mouth, stormy eyes bulging out of his skull. Thorin thought to make fun of the proposition, thought to ruin Thranduil's air of brutally earned superiority with a simple denial, but the cocktail of lust had already spread through his body and his thirst for silver constricted his throat.  
  
"However," the elf continued, breaking the stupor that had befallen Bard. "I have one prerequisite."  
  
"Only one? The mere suggestion is preposterous" Bard exclaimed. He put his hands to his hips and uttered a noise that teetered between a manic laugh and an incredulous huff. As these negotiations progressed, Thorin found his list of reasons to drive his blade through the dragonslayer's heart ever expanding.  
  
"Speak it."  
  
"It is to be a singular event and it is to happen in conjunction with Bard." Thranduil tilted closer to Bard, now putting one ringed hand on his shoulder to squeeze the aghastness out of him. Merely another puppet to Thranduil's designs. Oh, but Thorin was torn. His station would not allow it, his self-servitude cried for bloody murder, but his body unmistakably wanted to ravish Thranduil in any way it would be allowed.  
  
"Those are two conditions," he said and gripped the table to steady himself. His mind was on other proceedings already, painting the arc of Thranduil's body across Thorin's bed which would be too short to be comfortable for the elf.  
  
"A grammatical triviality. I have made of them one sentence and therefore consider them one. Do you wish to draw this out further or do you want to - as your swelling cock would have me assume you do - concede and get on with the procedure?"  
  
"Objectionable," Thorin said. "But not unreasonable. We have ourselves a deal."  
  
"Hold on," Bard interjected and for the first time, Thorin spied a glimpse of exasperation on Thranduil's part. "Thranduil, are you quite aware of what you are saying?"  
  
"I always am, dearest. Are you? Am I to prevail upon your trust once more or are you going to act on it on your own account?" Thranduil let his fingers wander up to frame the bargeman's face who caved in under the touch, melting into a bewitched adoration. Thorin sucked on his teeth, then spat on the floor.  
  
"If you two are done your domestic, follow me." Thorin walked through a door at the back of the council chamber, heart pounding with anger, cock throbbing with desire. This pointy-eared priss was going to be the end of him and didn't he know it.

Part III: The Newly-Named King  
  
Bard was not a proud being. As every man, he possessed a moral codex shaped by long years of hardship and exposure to the suffering of his kin and one would be right to claim that his was elaborate and strong, but that did not equal pride. As every man, Bard was also plagued by an automatism in his mind that swathed him in the firm belief that his own moral codex and therefore beliefs and behaviours were the correct ones, but that too could not constitute a sense of superiority, a need to boast or defend his good name.  
  
This was what differentiated Bard from most of his kind: he was able to retract his own judgement if presented with a counter-argument he deemed compelling or logical enough and he was compassionate beyond the scope of most mortal hearts' ability to feel for others. Born into a city-state that was both wretched and poor, these extraordinary traits were to his detriment. They were also the reason he complied with the payment Thranduil had offered to Thorin. It was not fair by any standard, far pricier and more intimate than either of them deserved and not at all according to the first vow Thorin had made to Bard. It was a harsh lesson to learn, but Bard being who he was, he accepted it and was grateful it had come to him this early in his reign and that Thranduil - quite literally - had taken him by the hand to guide him through to the silver lining of it.  
  
Thus, Bard of many titles, none of which - except that which named him the father of three excellent children - he felt he deserved, found himself in Thorin Oakenshield's bedchamber in a state of considerable undress, quick at work at unbuckling Thranduil's armor. The dwarf was impatient, prowling the dingy room in which the air was stale and every surface seemed scratchy and unwelcoming, as though the mountain had been turned outside in. The white coat of snow was reflected in the delicate paleness of Thranduil's skin as Bard laid it bare, piece by piece. He stopped ever so often to outline a protruding bone with fingers or lips, or to search Thranduil's hardened features for any sign that this was to be stopped. There were none. His blue eyes burned icy cold and the firm line of his mouth was pliable only by administration of patient kisses which Thorin was quick to interrupt with an instruction to make haste.  
  
"Give us a moment," Bard said, glancing at the dwarfen king who wore naught more than a simple blue tunic now, his peppered hair and beard spilling freely over his shoulders. Contrary to what Thranduil claimed, his cock was not in exact proportion to his frame, but could compete with any well-endowed man. Bard tried not to let his gaze linger nor to imagine just how close he was going to come to it. He refocused on Thranduil who looked out of place here, radiant where everything seemed dull with erosion.  
  
He was lithe where Thorin was stout, elegant and well-mannered where Thorin was brunt and gruff, all long curves and skin that prickled under Bard's touch where Thorin was sure to be coarse and rough.  
  
"I have not the patience to watch you burn yourself on your feelings, mylords," Thorin said and walked over to them. He pulled Thranduil away by the hips and ripped what remained of his smallclothes off him. Bard stood, chanting the reasons he was doing this in his mind until they overlaid his revulsion for Thorin. Then, once Thranduil was stripped down, a glimpse through a dulled and ancienct spyglass at the primordial beauty of this world, a whisper of its terror, just beyond Bard's grasp, these reasons were muted by the rush of admiration he felt. A dangerous and necessary precursor to what Bard suspected might turn into love one day.  
  
And even though Thorin's tanned and thick fingers looked so thoroughly out of place on Thranduil's fair skin, the elf bore it with a defiant quirk to the delicious curve of his mouth. Bard wondered whether this was not the first time Thranduil sold his body for the greater advantage to his mission and then pushed that thought aside. It availed to nothing.  
  
"How are we to do this?" Bard asked and because he was an animal after all, he brought his palms up to cup Thranduil's face and stole from him another kiss that tasted like the air on the verge of frost melting.  
  
Thorin rummaged in a small chest on his desk. It was not half-rotten nor did its hinges shriek. In the short time they'd been here, the dwarfs had made themselves a home. Thorin pulled out a small flask and tossed it to Bard who caught it out of reflex.  
  
"Oil," Thorin said, crossing his arms. His cock gave a nervous jolt as he spoke the next words. "Prepare him."  
  
Bard sighed and let Thranduil nudge him onto the bed where he sat against the headboard, bare for all the kings in this room to gawk at and pulled Thranduil onto his lap. Here was a song they had danced to enough times that Bard knew which touches would make Thranduil stiffen and arch his back and which would give his body the consistency of half-warmed candle wax. Bard allowed himself to stretch it out once more to make it more bearable for Thranduil and more pleasurable for himself.  
  
"I am quite ready," Thranduil murmured at last and guided Bard's length into himself with a firm hand.  
  
For a blissful pocket of time, they sunk back into the sensations of the previous night and several stolen ones, years before. Thranduil rocked slowly on Bard's lap, steadying himself by gripping the ridges of the patterns carved into the wall behind, and Bard took to worshipping Thranduil's sinewy neck and his muscular chest with mouth and hand alike, gasping when Thranduil's hot flesh clenched tight around him. It brought the simmering pleasure in Bard's stomach to a boil and he was on the verge of a profession, could taste it as viscose syrup on his tongue, when Thranduil's gentle movement was stalled by Thorin's coarse bark.  
  
"Halt."  
  
Bard ground his teeth and bore it, barely. His legs twitched, off-setting Thranduil's perfect angle, but doing nothing to shoo the dwarf away. He was an intruder, a tyrant, a spiteful wyrm, no better than Smaug himself and like that fiend, Thorin took, took, took.  
  
"Look at me," Thranduil beckoned, and Bard complied. There was no helmet now, less than a facade. In this small, precious instant, Thranduil had taken off all masks and pretenses and replaced them with a benign smile that set off an avalanche in Bard's feelings. "If it unsettles you so, simply pretend I am rather tight today."  
  
Bard closed his eyes and uttered a shaky exhale which Thranduil snatched away with a kiss in the same instant that Thorin aligned his cock with Thranduil's entrance and squeezed inside with a mighty roar. Thranduil whimpered against Bard's mouth as he bucked forward.  
  
"Come now," Thorin crooned. "I don't think you are quite as stuck-up as you would like others to believe."  
  
The sensation was not as alien as Bard would have presumed if inspired to think up such a scenario, and still it was unlike anything he had ever felt before. As a man who appreciated monogamy this didn't so much surprise as irritate him. Tight would have been the most poignant terminology, but it wasn't just that. It was overcrowded, oversensitive, overwhelming almost.  
  
Thorin was thick and warm, his cock pulsing, sliding against Bard's as he eased into a slow rhythm and both elf and man were pinned to the bed by him. This was where Thorin held authority and dominance, this was where he could rise above them and subject them to his will. And he did, boring into Thranduil like a rabid dog in heat, disregading the physical and political repercussions of this would-be conquest.  
  
Thranduil uttered no sound beyond that first. He accepted all that Thorin offered, the guttural curses Bard couldn't decipher, the teeth that caused the snow to stain dark, the slaps on his buttocks. Thorin ground against Bard and into Thranduil and Bard would later be ashamed to think that the friction had given him some form of carnal pleasure. Not enough for him drown in it, but enough to draw forth a healthy flush and little groans. Thranduil too was hard, his length digging into Bard's stomach, but that was all the lust he displayed.  
  
It got easier, Thranduil's flesh more pliable and submissive, then it got more heated, then it got unbearable as Thorin fell into a frenzied pounding, hips arythmic, grunts lower and lower until at last, he pumped his hatred and his fury into Thranduil, accompanied by another string of dwarfen cuss words.  
  
In the aftermath, Bard held Thranduil's wrecked body close to his chest, still partially conjoined as neither of them had climaxed, and stroked out the tangles Thorin had put into his silken hair. It parted easily under callused fingers, soft and thick as a fawn's winter dress. There was wetness at Bard's collarbone above which Thranduil's forehead rested and for both their peace of mind, Bard attributed it to an outburst of relief or perhaps the excessive strain of bearing this burden. There was no weakness in the Elvenking's repertoire of cadence.  
  
"Here," Thorin said. He was halfway dressed once more and held out a piece of cloth to Bard which, though ratty in appearance, smelled of citrus. "So you may restore at least some of his dignity."  
  
By now, the moon would grin cruelly upon the firmament, but Bard saw it not. Felt not winter's cold caress nor its evil cackle. Tasted not the ashes that were rolling down the hills by agency of the dwarfen force that approached. He felt dread fill the cracks of him out nonetheless, cracks left by poverty and grief, mistrust and a resulting sense of fatalism. They were small, barely more than fissures, but they gave Bard one crumb of certainty: this reprieve would not last nor this communion satisfy dwarfen grief. Thorin would have his vengeance in blood, just whose exactly was still wisdom obstructed. All that was left for Bard to do was heed Thranduil's advice. Do what benefitted his people the most.  
  
Which, in this case, was to take the proffered cloth and nimbly, but not without affection, wipe Thranduil's sweaty cheeks, his soiled thighs, and to help him back into his tunic and harness, set right the diadem he wore.  
  
It was but a whim of nature that what was best for the people of Laketown coincided with what Bard's heart inclined him to do anyway.  
  
So was this meeting sealed, with a soft kiss on elven lips and a hollow promise tumbling from dwarfen ones. So started the Battle of the Five Armies, not with arrow or sword, but with a council of kings that was thereafter never spoken of again.


End file.
